A lost and inquisitive bohemian artisan befriends the thief and junkie that stole her art from a gallery in Oslo. As it transpires, an event that won't do future sales of her art any harm at all but does re-instill your faith in the generosity and kindness of people in a world that continually demonstrates the opposite.

This weekend, thanks to IDA (International Documentary Association), I was given the opportunity to watch Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree's documentary, "The Painter and the Thief." The film follows the 3 year journey of Czech artist living in Norway, Barbora Kysilkova, and her attempt to locate several of her paintings stolen from an art gallery. Barbora connects at the trial with caught ringleader, Karl-Bertil Nordland, a career criminal fighting a heroin addiction and a (possibly)feigned memory loss of the theft, and offers to paint his self-portrait, in hopes this may help her find out the whereabouts of the stolen paintings. What follows this initial meeting between the two is an unexpected friendship and empathetic bond over the next 3 years. Without giving anything away, the documentary's ending is rather extraordinary.

The Painter and the Thief is about both art and the art of being human. It's a brilliant, beautiful dogma-ish film presented as a documentary. Just watch it. It's charming and utterly engaging and it doesn't matter whether or not it's a documentary- it just is and that's what matters.